Spewing ACDC riffs, blues standards & free jazz The Nothing briefly reformed at Intellectually Handicapped Studios East for a performance for an elite group of music fans. Muff’s drum sound was perfected when the one mic the bone-idle engineer had allowed him for the drums fell off the stand and rolled under the kit. Ron’s guitar sound had finally been perfected with the discovery of Jim Dunlop 2″ picks which finally gave him that elusive tone he had been seeking, finally. Biff’s Ibanez bass scoured the room like a rutting warthog. Christofur’s jangly squeaks & squeals summoned forth all his demons and joy mingled together like so much mingled belly-button fluff, and reminded everyone of the “Dunedin sound” (finally available as a ProTools Plug-In for EU$195 from ‘wheresmyfamegoneandwhydoesnooneknowwhoiamanymore.org.com.nz’ – expander pack comes with Poor Management, Inability to Stop, and 90dB Bannister Detector)

It was all captured by yours truly, Ray Martini, on my trusty Porta-Tape Analogue Replicating Cassette Plug-In Tape Analogue Tube Vintage TEAC 412/PC Series 3b 1″ Ultra-Tape 35 Track as used by The Beatles for the backwards snare sound on Drive My Car. It was all trapped in glorious mono (‘less width more depth’ was my slogan goddamit!) and I will soon use every processing digit of ProTools to edit out all signs of life.

It was great to see the boys back together after all Cynthia’s trials of the past 6 months. He was rewaxed and ployful for the entire weakend afterwards.The charges against him being the real talent of the band seem to be subsiding and a basic form of humidity is emerging.

Ron, however, was still the perfectionist, demanding micro-tonal changes to Muff’s drums – he had actually arranged for a drum-tech to be flown in from LA to tune the 20 piece Gretsch kit that Warners had hired for the occasion, but her flight was diverted due to Imelda Marcos deciding she had been snubbed enough times already. Muff & Ron fought bitterly over the upcoming plan for Ron’s solo blues album, tenatively titled ‘Greyphis’, after Ron’s belief that Grey Lynn is the new Memphis, & that he is John Lee Hooker’s lovechild (which, Muff delighted in pointing out, simply couldn’t be true genetically speaking as Ron was “as white as man”).

Muff was looking clean, lean, mean & wholly gluten-free. His year of astral travel in the ashram at Portland Oregan had almost robbed him of the will to play rock drums as he had discovered his art was of hasidic and aboriginal roots and Boom Chak was a far cry from the unfettered artiness of being arty. He had decided to detune his lifestyle to a drop B# tuning that was post-rock but in a highly musical way.

Time has however not been so kind to Biff. His time off hard drugs has left him oddly personable – which none of us could stand. His upcoming weeding to a Greek supermodel seems like avoidance behaviour and we’re hoping to see him juiced to the eyeballs again soon. Still worse he has contracted an incurable advertising condition and will be on our screeds soon.

For me personally it was a great moment & all the intervening years of fame & turmoil seemed to melt away and once again I was just ol’ Ray the tape op & the lads tousled my hair and offered me chip butties & cups of tea just like in the old days.